Anthony was a Nose – a trained one as opposed to Savannah’s entirely untrained one and he liked trips away to refresh his senses. The Burren, with its moonscape beauty and hordes of plants found nowhere else on earth, was perfect for this. Also, it had some beautiful little hotels and Anthony was in love with a debonair older man who’d had far too few holidays in his youth and wanted to make up for it now. Savannah loved his stories of his and Phil’s trips away.
Phil was always cooking exotic feasts for Anthony, who could barely heat up a can of beans.
‘He cherishes me,’ Anthony said, a phrase that made Savannah gulp every time she heard it.
Imagine being cherished? The thought crushed her romantic heart because she was not cherished. She’d married a man who told her she was wrong and useless every day in scores of different ways. Being cherished was a fantasy.
Examination of the lemon found nothing wrong with it, which meant either some contamination on the lab floor in the early perfume-making process or, else, that the subtle building up of perfume involving base notes, and pinpricks of dazzling other scents had gone wrong.
They’d spent the afternoon discussing and smelling, until they were both miserable and incapable of smelling anything anymore.
‘Time flies,’ remarked Anthony, looking down at his phone. ‘It’s half five. Phil’s making his pomegranate-and-blue cheese salad. Divine is not the word.’
‘Shoot! Is that the time?’ said Savannah, shocked. The afternoon had flown.
She was running late.
Late was never tolerated.
By the time Savannah got home, she was exhausted with the stress of being late – why did lateness make a person feel even more stressed?
Clary was sitting in the den with a book while Marie-Denise, the au pair, chattered on her phone in the kitchen. Savannah had been brilliant at French in school, the summer at Grasse had helped and, once, she’d have listened briefly in case there was a hint of ‘the old bitch is home now …’ But there never had been. Marie-Denise was as genuinely sweet as the meringues she made.
Eden never quite believed anyone could be that nice but then, Eden was a cynic. Savannah idolised Marie-Denise because she was so kind and seemed to understand the way Savannah’s home worked without being told.
Make sure Calum is happy – that was the house motto. Unspoken but very present.
‘Savannah’s back,’ Maire-Denise was saying now. ‘I’ll go and say hi. Talk in an hour?’
Never leave, thought Savannah, waving at Marie-Denise. She went into the den where she slipped off her high shoes and curled up on the maroon velvet couch with her daughter, who never took her eyes off her book but let her mother wrap both arms around her.
Savannah closed her eyes and let herself relax into her beloved daughter’s little body.
‘Hello, darling girl,’ she murmured. ‘I missed you. How was your day?’
‘We had a test in sums. I think I got them all right but Ms McCormack only corrects the tests at night so I don’t know. Daniel got the same answers as me. I have to draw a picture of an animal, a going-extinct one, and can you help me find one? Granny likes tigers, they’re going extinct, aren’t they? Granddad said men with motorbikes like him are going extinct and Granny said it was a Hardly Able To motorbike and it should go extinct, but motorbikes can’t go extinct, can they?’
Clary put down her book and snuggled into her mother’s thin frame, her little ten-year-old’s body warm and scented with some of the rose perfume Savannah was working on. Savannah held her and thought that this was heaven, this moment when she was with Clary, holding her, when nothing could hurt her, when it was just them and Marie-Denise, who was such a sweet, benign presence.
Everyone thought Clary was a silent child but she wasn’t – not with Savannah, with whom she chattered non-stop, or with Marie-Denise, or with Daniel, who was her best friend, a boy as clever as she who also wore glasses and read a lot.
‘Granddad was just joking,’ Savannah said, holding on to her daughter. ‘He likes joking.’
‘I know that,’ said Clary but Savannah could hear the sliver of not-understanding in her daughter’s voice. Clary did not understand light-hearted teasing, which broke Savannah’s heart. Because she knew why.
She sat with Clary for a while and they talked, until Savannah looked at her watch and noticed the time for the second time in as many hours.
Half six. Calum was home by six forty-five most nights.
‘Daddy will be home soon,’ she said, getting up quickly. She planted a kiss on her daughter’s forehead and ran into the kitchen.
Marie-Denise, tanned from sitting in the garden in her shorts and a bikini top, was defrosting an expensive ready-made goulash that Calum liked for dinner.
‘You are an angel, Marie-Denise,’ sighed Savannah when she saw the two tubs sitting on the counter. ‘Shall we have wine?’
Marie-Denise, who came from Burgundy and had grown up in a family steeped in viniculture, beamed.
Savannah tried to limit wine nights to the weekend but this week felt so weirdly stressed, what with the time she’d have to spend on the wedding, and the thought of all the family dynamics at the actual event. And then the looming reveal of the packaging. She’d have to tell him soon … A glass of wine would relax her, relax Calum.
